Manhattan Murder Mystery

Manhattan Murder Mystery
Theatrical poster
Directed by	Woody Allen
Produced by	Robert Greenhut
Written by	Woody Allen Marshall Brickman
Starring	Woody Allen Diane Keaton Anjelica Huston Alan Alda Joy Behar
Cinematography	Carlo Di Palma
Editing by	Susan E. Morse
Distributed by	TriStar Pictures
Release date(s)	August 18, 1993
Running time	104 minutes
Country	USA
Language	English
Budget	$13.5 million (est.)
Box office	$11,285,588 (USA)

Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993) is a comedic murder mystery film directed by and starring Woody Allen and written by Marshall Brickman and Woody Allen.

Plot

After attending a hockey game, Larry Lipton and his wife Carol meet their next-door neighbors Paul and Lilian House, and are invited in for coffee. Lilian discusses her various exercises with Carol, while Paul shows Larry his stamp collections. The couple seems very healthy considering their ages.

The next night, Larry and Carol come off the elevator to find the Houses' door open, and a crowd forming in the doorway. They learn that Lilian has died of a heart attack suddenly. Her body is covered by a sheet on a stretcher. Larry and Carol both think that her death is a surprise, because she was so healthy, and didn't mention any heart conditions when with Carol.

A couple of days after her death, the Liptons meet Paul on the street. Carol notes on his cheerfulness, and thinks his behavior is suspicious. Larry thinks Carol should visit her shrink again. Intent on visiting Paul again, Carol bakes him a dessert and she and Larry go over to his apartment. While searching for coffee beans in the kitchen, she finds an urn with ashes hidden in a cupboard, despite the fact that Paul said that Lilian was buried. Carol becomes more suspicious, especially after she hears him leave his apartment at 1 o'clock in the morning. She thinks that he took his car out to dispose of the urn; Larry believes that Carol is grossly overreacting.

Carol sees Paul leaving the building the next morning, so she steals a spare key from the office, and sneaks into his apartment. The urn is missing, and she sees two tickets to Paris and a reservation for a Paris hotel, along with the name Helen Moss. While she's still in Paul's home she calls Ted, a family friend who is equally interested in the mystery. Paul walks in, and Carol hides under the bed. She overhears a conversation with who she supposes is Helen Moss. She escapes, only to realize later that she left her glasses in the apartment.

She tells Larry about this, and he is angry with her for acting so foolishly. She makes another dessert to bring to Paul, and she and Larry visit him again to find her glasses. After a quick search Paul produces them, and says he found them under the bed. Meanwhile, Ted looked up Helen Moss and found out where she lives. He and Carol scout out the apartment, and find that Helen Moss is a young, beautiful actress. They follow her to the theater Paul owns. A elderly woman is also there, and is friends with Paul.

Later, Carol and Ted are together for a wine tasting. Ted leaves, and Carol sees Lilian House riding the bus. She tells Larry, who doesn't believe her, and suggests that Lilian has a twin. Ted however, does believe her and looks up Mrs. House to learn that she had a sister and a late brother, but no twin. Larry becomes jealous of their relationship, so he decides to scout out the street Carol saw Lilian on with his wife. Larry tries to remain enthusiastic, like Ted, and eventually believes Carol when he sees Mrs. House enter a hotel. Carol decides to buy a fake gift for Lilian, so they can sneak into the hotel and talk to her.

They are allowed in, though Mrs. House is under a fake name. They enter her room with the fake gift, to find her dead on the bedroom floor. They hurry out of the room and call the police, but once they arrive, the body is gone. Carol doesn't accept this, so she goes back later with Larry to search the room for any clues. They find Mrs. House's wedding ring. They leave to the elevator, but it suddenly stops . Larry suffers from severe claustrophobia and begins to freak out. Carol tries to escape to through the roof, only to find Mrs. House's dead body. The lights go out, and the elevator goes down to the basement. Larry and Carol leave through the back door - Larry thoroughly frightened, and Carol thrilled. They get to the street and see a man put a body in his trunk.

The couple follow him out of the city to junk yard that's melting scrap metal. The man dumps her body in a pile, and the body is burned in front of Carol and Larry. They follow the man to his car to learn that it is Paul, who noticed the couple following him before. Larry and Carol know there is nothing they can do, as all evidence is gone, and Paul has an alibi, Mrs. Dalton (the elderly woman at the theater), for when the deaths took place.

They later get together with Ted and Marcia, an author friend of Larry's. Marcia says that Paul pulled the perfect murder, and tells Carol and Larry how to catch him. They plan to create a fake audition and get Helen to it, and get her to recite some lines. They will take those lines and create several tapes to feign a phone call between her and Paul, stating that Carol and Larry saved Mrs. House's body and want $200 000 or they will call the police. The tapes of Helen state that he can either give them the money or kill them. Marcia knows that Paul with undoubtedly try to kill them, which is when they contact the police.

The plan goes relatively well until after the phone call. Carol accuses Larry of being attracted to Marcia, as he suggested a book to her and has been taking late night poker lessons from her. Larry expresses his same concerns with Ted. Carol asks him for some time alone and goes back to the apartment. Paul kidnaps her and brings her to his theater. He calls Larry and threatens to kill Carol, unless Larry brings Lilian's body. Though they were bluffing, Larry goes anyway to save his wife.

Paul sees that Larry has no body, and they briefly fight. Larry runs off to find Carol, but he is disoriented when he enters the room behind the theater's screen. There are renovations being done, and there are several mirrors and windows reflecting the movie being played. Paul stalks him down with a gun, but is shot by Mrs. Dalton, the elderly woman. It is evident that they were having an affair, and she doesn't want him to run away with Helen. Larry finds Carol tied up and saves her, and they both call the police. The thrill of the whole ordeal has brought them closer.

In an ending scene, Marcia explains to Ted what exactly took place (which is almost exactly what she supposed) - the dead body in the apartment was Mrs. House's rich sister. The sister had a heart attack while visiting them, so the couple took advantage of the situation. Mrs. House hid as her husband called the police and claimed his wife died. They looked so similar no one noticed. Mrs. House left the apartment early in the morning and checked into a hotel. She was to pretend to be her sister, changing her will so she and her husband received all her money. After this was done, Mr. House double-crossed and killed her, so he could run off with Helen. The plan went perfectly until Carol and Larry interfered.

Production

The screenplay for Manhattan Murder Mystery originally started out as Annie Hall but Woody Allen did not feel that it was substantial enough even though he loved mysteries. He decided to go in a different direction.^[1] He had put off making the film for years because he felt it was too lightweight, "like an airplane book read".^[2] Allen decided to revisit the material in the early 1990s, contacting Marshall Brickman, who co-wrote Annie Hall, and they worked on the story some more.^[3] His wife in the film was originally written for Mia Farrow until she and Woody Allen ended their relationship and became embroiled in a custody battle over their three children.^[4] Allegations in the media claimed that changes were made to the film in what was "definitely a reaction" to Allen's relationship problems, including the casting of Anjelica Huston in the role of what the script had called, "a much younger first-time novelist" with whom Allen's character became romantically involved.^[5]

In the fall of 1992, Allen called Diane Keaton and asked her to fill in for Farrow and she immediately accepted.^[2] When asked if he had re-written the script to fit Keaton's talents, Allen said, "No, I couldn't do that. In a regular script I would have done that upon hiring Diane Keaton. But I couldn't [here] because it's a murder mystery, and it's very tightly plotted, so it's very hard to make big changes....I had written [the part] more to what Mia likes to do. Mia likes to do funny things, but she's not as broad a comedian as Diane is. So Diane made this part funnier than I wrote it".^[6]

Making the film was a form of escape for Allen because the "past year was so exhausting that I wanted to just indulge myself in something I could relax and enjoy".^[1] He also found it very therapeutic working with Keaton again. After getting over her initial panic in her first scene with Alan Alda, Keaton and Allen slipped back into their old rhythm.^[2] After she had trouble with that scene, Allen decided to re-shoot it. In the meantime, she worked with her acting coach and did other scenes that went well.^[7] According to Allen, Keaton changed the dynamic of the film because he "always look(s) sober and normal compared to Keaton. I turn into the straight man". Huston said that the set was "oddly free of anxiety, introspection and pain", and this was due to Keaton's presence.^[2]

The film was shot in the fall of 1992 on the streets of Greenwich Village, the Upper East Side and the Upper West Side. Allen had cinematographer Carlo Di Palma rely on hand-held cameras , "swiveling restlessly from one room to another, or zooming in abruptly for a close look " in a style one reviewer called "meaningless affectation."^[8]

Larry and Carol Lipton's apartment is at 200 East 78th Street, between 2nd and 3rd Avenue^[4] and between two groups of New York City Designated Landmarks, east of one group of rowhouses and west of another group. Allen staged a climactic shoot-out in a roomful of mirrors that, according to Allen, referenced a similar shoot-out in Orson Welles' film, The Lady from Shanghai.^[9]

This was Allen's second and final film with TriStar Pictures, and it was speculated in the press that this deal was not extended because of the filmmaker's personal problems, or that his films were not very profitable. Allen, however, denied these allegations in interviews at the time.^[1] Zach Braff made his feature film debut in a one-scene role as the son of Allen and Keaton's characters; Braff later said, "When I look at that scene now, all I can see is the terror in my eyes".^[10]

Reception

Manhattan Murder Mystery opened on August 18, 1993 in 268 theaters and made USD $2 million in its opening weekend. It went on to gross $11.3 million in North America, below its estimated $13.5 million budget.^[11] Its £1,920,825 in box office made it the number-one film in the United Kingdom for the weekend ending January 23, 1994.

In his review for Newsweek, David Ansen wrote, "On screen, Keaton and Allen have always been made for each other: they still strike wonderfully ditsy sparks".^[12] USA Today gave the film four out of four stars, and advised fans to forget Allen's tabloid woes because "there's a better reason why Allen fans should give it a shot. It's very, very funny, and there's no mystery about that".^[13] Janet Maslin called it a "dated detective story" but also wrote, "it achieves a gentle, nostalgic grace and a hint of un-self-conscious wisdom".^[8] Desson Howe, in the Washington Post, complained that there was "little 'new' in this film. Allen and Keaton are essentially playing Alvy Singer and Annie Hall gone middle-aged".^[14]

As of October 2011, twenty of 22 reviews at Rotten Tomatoes are "fresh", though that is too few reviews to be consider a consensus.^[15]

Nominations

• 1994 César Awards: Best Foreign Film
• 48th British Academy Film Awards: Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Anjelica Huston
• 51st Golden Globe Awards: Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role - Comedy/Musical, Diane Keaton

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} Fine, Marshall (August 18, 1993). "Woody's Take". USA Today. 
2. ^ ^{a b c d} Dowd, Maureen (August 15, 1993). "Diane and Woody, Still a Fun Couple". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1993/08/15/movies/diane-and-woody-still-a-fun-couple.html?pagewanted=all. Retrieved 2011-10-28. 
3. ^ De Curtis, Anthony (September 5, 1993). "What's With Woody?". Toronto Star. 
4. ^ ^{a b} Span, Paula (May 4, 1993). "Here Comes the Judgment". Washington Post. 
5. ^ "Pop Culture News: Yet Another Woman". Entertainment Weekly. 1992-10-02. http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,311975,00.html. Retrieved 2007-01-23. 
6. ^ Bjorkman, Stig (2004). "Woody Allen on Woody Allen: Revised Edition". Faber and Faber. 
7. ^ Green, Tom (August 24, 1993). "There's No Mystery to Keaton's Relation to Woody". USA Today. 
8. ^ ^{a b} Maslin, Janet (August 18, 1993). "Allen and Keaton, Together Again And Dizzy as Ever". The New York Times. http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9F0CE0D81330F93BA2575BC0A965958260. Retrieved 2011-10-28. 
9. ^ Pendreigh, Brian (September 6, 1993). "A New York Story". The Scotsman. 
10. ^ "Breakouts: Best Rx". by Bruce Fretts, Entertainment Weekly.. 2001-12-21. http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,252806,00.html. Retrieved 2007-01-23. 
11. ^ "Manhattan Murder Mystery". Box Office Mojo. http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=manhattanmurdermystery.htm. Retrieved 2008-02-01. 
12. ^ Ansen, David (August 30, 1993). "Play It Again, Woody". Newsweek. 
13. ^ Clark, Mike (August 18, 1993). "Allen's Murder Mystery: Hedunit Brilliantly". USA Today. 
14. ^ Howe, Desson (August 20, 1993). "Allen's Marital Mystery Cure". Washington Post. 
15. ^ Manhattan Murder Mystery at Rotten Tomatoes

External links

• Manhattan Murder Mystery at the Internet Movie Database
• Manhattan Murder Mystery at Turner Classic Movies
• Manhattan Murder Mystery at AllRovi
• Manhattan Murder Mystery at Rotten Tomatoes